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How can you support emotional regulation – both in yourself, and in the children and young people you support? Clinical psychologist and author, Dr Karen Treisman MBE, gives an introduction to emotional regulation as an essential foundation for therapeutic work, and explains how you can get tools that aid emotional regulation in yourself and others.
As a clinical psychologist, trainer, and author, I have long been interested in how we support emotional regulation in ways that are relational, creative, and genuinely usable in real life. Emotional regulation is often spoken about as a skill to “teach” or an outcome to “achieve,” sometimes reduced to a list of techniques or exercises. Yet for many of us and for the children, teens, families, and adults we support, regulation is not a switch we can simply turn on or off. It is shaped by our nervous systems, our histories, our environments, our relationships, and our bodies.
Regulation is also frequently positioned as something we expect others to do, rather than something we attend to within ourselves. But emotional regulation is not a “nice extra” or a bolt-on intervention. It is a vital foundation, a precursor, for therapeutic work, relational connection, thinking, learning, and meaning making. Without some sense of safety, steadiness, or anchoring, many interventions are simply asking too much of the nervous system.
Grounding and anchoring offer us gentle, practical ways of coming back to ourselves, to the present moment, and to our bodies. Rather than asking people to “calm down,” they invite curiosity about what helps us feel a little more settled, a little more connected, or a little more resourced. When approached creatively and relationally, these practices can become far richer than a single breathing exercise or script. They can become personalised, flexible, and embedded into everyday moments.
At their simplest, grounding and anchoring are about helping the body and nervous system find reference points through the senses, movement, rhythm, breath, imagery, objects, or relationships. But when used intentionally, they become much more than techniques. They can hold emotion, story, choice, agency, and meaning. They can help people notice what supports them to up-regulate when they feel shut down, or down-regulate when they feel overwhelmed. They can also help us tune into the early signals of dysregulation, before things escalate.
Creative approaches allow us to move beyond a one-size-fits-all model of regulation. We can explore anchors through texture, temperature, weight, smell, colour, sound, and movement. We can externalise regulation tools into objects, images, metaphors, and rituals. We can micro-dose regulation throughout our day – at the beginning of meetings, between tasks, after difficult conversations, or before transitions; rather than only reaching for tools in moments of crisis.
Importantly, grounding and anchoring are relational as well as individual. They are shaped by who we are with, how we feel seen and understood, and whether we experience choice and consent. What feels regulating for one person may feel unsafe or overwhelming for another. This is why curiosity, collaboration, and flexibility matter so much.
In my forthcoming Live Classroom, I will be sharing a wide range of practical, sensory, physical, creative, and cognitive emotional regulation tools, drawing on my clinical work and on tools from my bestselling books and resources.
(Tickets for Karen’s Live Classroom are on sale now – book yours here)
We will explore how to enrich and expand familiar exercises, such as breathing or imagery using expressive, playful, and body-based ideas, and how to adapt tools for different ages, settings, and needs.
There is an assumption that participants bring a basic understanding of therapeutic work, as this session will not focus on core therapeutic skills, but rather on enriching and deepening how we support regulation in ourselves and others.
This session is intended as a comma, not a full stop. Emotional regulation, grounding, and anchoring are not finite skillsets, but evolving practices that grow with reflection, experimentation, and lived experience. It will likely be of interest to those working in therapy, social care, education, health, or reflective supervision who want to expand their regulation toolkit in thoughtful and creative ways. We will:
Get tools and techniques you can use to help you, and the children and young people you work with, feel grounded and calm. And take away tools and techniques for emotional regulation.
Our online Live Classroom with Dr Karen Treisman MBE is open for booking now and tickets are just £50 (or included in your Creative Life Story Work membership).
Dr Karen Treisman, MBE, is an award-winning clinical psychologist, author (of 14 books and five sets of cards), trainer, and speaker specialising in trauma, attachment, and organisational cultural change. She is known for making complex concepts accessible through creativity, compassion, and practical tools, and is the founder and director of Safe Hands and Thinking Minds.
